Monday, October 26, 2020

How Kira helps in an Emergency.


Use of emergency button

Prior to her brain surgery for epilepsy, Amanda was having so many generalized seizures that the local paramedics soon became very familiar with our address.

 Many people living with epilepsy may experience a generalized (“tonic clonic” or “convulsive”) seizure, and recover from it naturally on their own, regaining consciousness within a few minutes.  Amanda, however, has a history of going into “status”. 


Epilepsy Ontario defines this state as such:

Status Epilepticus is considered a medical emergency. Immediate medical care is required. Most seizures run their course and end naturally on their own within seconds or a few minutes. Status epilepticus is a seizure that lasts for 30 minutes or longer, or when seizures repeat without recovery in between. Aug 8, 2011

Status Epilepticus – Epilepsy Ontario

 

After 5 minutes of continuous seizing, it is recommended that IV doses of emergency medications be delivered by a doctor at the hospital. As a general rule, if the person is still actively seizing at this point, the condition is considered status epilepticus and medical intervention is necessary to stop the seizures.

 

Although Amanda’s surgery decreased the frequency of her generalized seizures, there have still been a few.  Despite the surgery, medications and VNS therapy, when her daily seizures occur in clusters they may develop into a generalized seizure, and for Amanda that could be dangerous or even fatal. 

Safety precautions were necessary for independent living.

In preparation for training her dog how to activate an emergency button to summon help, Amanda taught Kira to practice on a Staples “That was easy” button. 



The practice button.

Amanda’s brother, Xander Robar who owns and operates OnSwitch IT, built an emergency button that Kira has now learned to activate whenever she sees that Amanda has collapsed and requires outside help. 



Xander's OnSwitch Emergency button.

Amanda regularly practices pretending to go into a generalized seizure so that Kira knows exactly what to do.  The dog recognizes the emergency and presses the button, setting off a series of pre-recorded messages to a list of emergency contacts to let them know that Amanda needs help. The messages will continue to cycle through the list of contacts until someone acknowledges that they are able to help.  At that point they can get to Amanda and assist her by administering emergency medication and calling 911 if the seizure persists. 

We are so grateful to Xander for his use of technology to allow Amanda to live an independent life.

See video for a demonstration of how Kira responds to a generalized seizure.

https://youtu.be/bL6VVxc9GN8



To donate to Cable's fund so that she can be trained to perform tasks such as this go to:

No comments:

Post a Comment

Winter Happenings with Cable

 Cable had a busy fall and Christmas and is working hard with Brooke Nishio of T.E.A.M. Canines to complete her service dog training.  Here ...